3 Ways Social Media Infiltrates Pop Culture

March 4, 2010 written by Liz

This blog is the fourth in a week long experimental blog series. Enjoy. After all is said and done, we’ll let you know how it went.

It’s actually even hard to say that social media “infiltrates” pop culture. Social media just is our culture now. Still, a disconnect still often exists between social media and traditional media, such as television. So far we’ve seen a few ways that really do work – and some that just don’t.

Two ‘Do’:

If you’re a fan of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, you’ve probably already learned all you need to know about viral video marketing. One character, Dee, has decided that she is going to create viral content on YouTube with any one of her ‘hilarious’ characters, while Charlie believes the key to going viral is unexpected pain or Dee’s pathetic, personal video diary.

SNL also recently did a sketch during “Weekend Update” with their “New Media Correspondent” poking fun at YouTube’s long load times and buffering issues. It might be a good idea here to keep in mind that Hulu was started by NBC. . .

One ‘Don’t’:

While mentioning and parodying social networks on TV seems to be popular, that actually seems to be the limit. Some shows like Fox’s “Fringe” and “Glee” tried to integrate social media by having tweet commentary from the cast members and crew during repeats but in the end, the addition really just aggravated viewers. The feed ended up blocking

We saw during the Olympics that viewers were definitely online tweeting and searching all topics winter-sport-related, but the separation between screens might stick around for a while.

Despite being constantly connected, it seems that sometimes viewers just like to have the option to turn off all the noise and simply enjoy.